The comic artwork of Ryan Claytor.

I’ve been busy illustrating a few freelance gigs recently, so I thought I’d pull back the curtain and talk about the collaboration that goes into creating a project like the one you see below. (Click any image to enlarge)

Rob Anthony, the man (myth, legend, gentleman/scholar, etc.) behind Pinball Classics, contacted me after seeing my work on the Pinball at the Zoo event art. I was excited he was interested in working together, as I’ve seen him behind a table at several pinball conventions I’ve attended.

The initial design phase was a bit challenging for this image because it’s not easy to distill everything that Rob does! Just for a brief list, Rob repairs pinball circuit boards, he sells pinball apparel, and also carries tons of pinball-related merchandise which includes everything from rubber post bumpers to custom shooter rods to light bulbs, and about a million other things. So, during the ideation phase, I sent several concepts to Rob. We came to the conclusion that Rob wanted to focus on the traveling salesman aspect of his business. He drives around from show to show all over the United States with his trusty canine companion, Taro, in his red Honda Fit. Rob was not very interested in being the center of attention, consequently Taro was to become the star of the show. So we started with a couple pictures of Taro for reference.

The initial concept was more of a head-on “comin’ atchya!” type of approach. However, we both wanted something that felt as though it had a bit more action to it. Taro was also concerned that his role was being downplayed.

In order to address the aforementioned concerns, I changed the angle of the car. The left to right motion made it look more active and I lowered the camera angle to give a more grandiose appearance to the subjects. It also allowed Taro to be the center of attention, as he requested. I added a tagline to clarify the services offered by Rob. The blueline notes are there to shed some light on the intended outcome of the illustration once things are a little more fleshed-out. Right now we’re still in the rough pencil stages.

We were getting pretty close, but Rob gently pointed-out that the vehicle in question should be a Honda FIT, not a minivan. This was my fault, as I incorrectly assumed that the Fit was Honda’s minivan model. NOT SO! Thanks to the Googles, I reminded myself what a Honda Fit looked like…

…and did the job I should have done in the first place.

Once pencils were approved, I moved on to inks, where the rough illustration is honed into a finalized form.

Since most of the elements were already approved from the pencil stage the inks did not have many revisions to work through, so we moved forward with the colors.

We weren’t sure how many colors we would use (4 or 5), so I did some research and obtained price quotes for various quantities and number of ink colors, which I presented to Rob. When the numbers came in, Rob decided to give me the leeway to produce a 5-color design. YISSSS!!!! <–(Artist excitement)

In our conversations, Rob mentioned that his favorite color was purple, so I thought we could make this design pretty unique and eye-catching if it was on a purple shirt. So this was my first attempt at a colored version.

Rob wasn’t so sure about the color choices. Despite purple being being his favorite color, he was afraid it might look a tad feminine for his predominantly male clientele. So we tried out a navy blue shirt for a more masculine look.

Rob was also hoping the car might be red, a true-to-life representation of his red Honda. I cautioned Rob that if we changed the color to red, we’d have to get rid of an existing color, assuming we would maintain a 5-color design. In all likelihood, that would mean getting rid of the orange in favor of the red. On the bright side, we’d be able to mix red and yellow to make orange. On the dim side, that orange would no longer be a solid orange print, but a halftone mixture of red and yellow. After explaining to Rob what the heck a halftone is, he wasn’t bothered by Taro and the left pinball machine being made up of some tiny dots. We also took this opportunity to add some more authenticity to Taro by including his white stripe and grey nose. Here’s another reference shot that helped with that.

Aaaand the color revision.

We were getting pretty darn close with those last changes. The final alteration Rob requested was that Taro’s goggles be darker, again, to be a bit more true to life (see first Taro reference photo).

With the headgear approved, Rob and I had arrived at a completed design.

At this point I coordinated with a trusted T-shirt printer to have them screen-print the shirts. However, before they actually go to press their designers send me proofs of what the shirt will look like printed on shirt. This involves a healthy knowledge of ink transparency, color mixing, and halftoning know-how. Thankfully they have one of my former students on separation duties, so he’s definitely a trusted source. (Thanks, Matt!) To make a long story short, this is the part where Matt makes me look really good. Here’s the first pass I was sent (click on the image to see a larger version, complete with dot patterns used to mix colors).

The pinball armor (legs, side rails, lock-down bar, and plunger), which is supposed to look like chrome, ended-up looking a lot darker than I initially intended.

Consequently, I asked if they could back the color with white ink, instead of printing directly on the dark shirt, and screen the blue color so that more white would show through.

The result looked better than the first mock-up, but still not what I was hoping for. It looked to me like they screened the blue to around a 70% visibility, so I asked them to pull it back to about a 40%.

THAT’S what I’m talking about! And with that we have final revision of the proofs!

At the time of this post, we do not have the physical shirts in our hands. However, I’ll be picking them up one week from today. If you’re interested in purchasing one, Rob Anthony already has them for sale on his website RIGHT HERE <–(Scroll down to the bottom).

I wanted to take this opportunity to send a big thank you to Rob Anthony for being such a great client. I had a blast working on this T-shirt illustration and sincerely believe we arrived at a composition that was stronger than either of us would have produced alone. I can’t wait to put one on my back and hand you the rest!